We have been called to serve as Family History Support Missionaries in the England, London Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We will serve in the London Family History Centre for 18 months beginning January 2011, assisting people with their family history.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Connections

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s interesting how many connections there are in life. Through Barbara and John Robertson, one of the 3 missionary couples in the Family History Centre, we were able to find a link to a journal in the BYU Library written by Ken’s 2nd great grandfather Andrew Ferguson. He was born in Rutherglen, Scotland, joined the church there and was called to serve a mission. He left his young family to do so and traveled all over Scotland. The family later immigrated to Utah.

The journal was written while he served his mission and records his travels and missionary service. His testimony is very touching and he gives a beautiful tribute to his young wife who dies. Ken and our son-in-law, Mark Robins, served in some of the same places as Andrew Ferguson when they were on Scottish missions. When our son Andrew and his wife Amy and their 2 boys, Bryan and Matthew, lived in Scotland, they lived only 6 miles north of Rutherglen. It turns out that John Robertson’s 2nd great grandfather was a missionary companion to Andrew Ferguson and is mentioned in the journal. Now Ken and John are serving together in the Family History Centre. If any of you are interested in seeing the journal, here is the link:

Another connection: I worked for several years with Devon Tufts who was our assistant principal at Timberline Middle School. We had a retirement party together last May and Devon and his wife Judy put in missionary papers about the same time as we did. They were called to serve in the England, Birmingham Mission as CES missionaries. That involves working with young college aged adults. We were in the MTC at the same time. Devon and Judy have a few days off when the universities close and are traveling down to London in a couple of weeks to see the sights and visit. We really look forward to seeing them.

We found out that another retiree from my school district, Paula Fugal and her husband Guy, a 2nd cousin of Ken’s, are also coming to England. They will serve as public affairs missionaries.

Our friends, the Prices, left London today and are headed home to Chandler, Arizona. We will sorely miss them. They helped us get settled, were our mentors in the FHC and became our good friends. We wish we could have served with them longer but feel that we were fortunate to have been able to serve with them for 2 months. The picture was taken at “Sticky Fingers”, where we had a goodbye party.

Ken and I are preparing a power point presentation titled English Records on FamilySearch and will be presenting it to the public on 26 April- very scary! Ken feels if he could do the presentation on nutrition and I feel if I could do it on Plate Tectonics we might feel a bit more comfortable.

We had the chance to go to 2 wonderful places in the past week. We toured the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. The Cabinet War Rooms are the restored rooms of the secret British underground bunker used by British officials as a headquarters during World War II. Also housed in the remains of the underground bunker is the Churchill Museum, a small museum dedicated to Sir Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

Shortly after being appointed Prime Minister on 10th May 1940 Churchill visited the bunker. On surveying the complex he chose a room, saying: “This is the room from which I will lead the war” – it was the largest room in the shelter. Churchill's War Cabinet met here 115 times during the course of the war. The War Cabinet Room is preserved exactly as it was when it closed in August 1945. Churchill's red box, which went everywhere with him, sits on the table, and original maps line the walls. It is interesting seeing all this and imagining how it must have been for the people in London during that terrible war, especially during the blitz. In the museum shop they had postcards with slogans used during the war. Here are some of my favorites:

I think the Keep Calm and Carry On is going to be our mission motto especially if we have to keep giving power point presentations to the public.

We went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Saturday with Prices, Cambells, and Sister Groves, to see the Norman Rockwell Exhibit. It was fabulous! They had many of his original paintings as well as a display of all 322 covers he made for The Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963. I never realized how brilliant he was.

Before I post this I need to add one last thing- it’s our Jimmer Fredette story. Last spring Ken and I were invited to a Cougar Club luncheon at the Student Athlete Building. Jimmer was in the building and we rode the elevator up with him. What an outstanding young man. We told him that we enjoyed watching him play basketball but that we would not be able to watch during the upcoming season because we were going to be serving a mission. He was very interested and asked where we would be serving. We told him England. Even thought we haven’t been able to see many of the basketball games, it has been so exciting to follow Jimmer and the Cougars this year. Go Cougars!